MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Double'

Friday

May 16, 2014 at 5:00 AM

By Al AlexanderFor The Patriot Ledger

What could be better than Jesse Eisenberg? Two Jesse Eisenbergs, of course. And all for the price of one. It’s the ultimate double-down, yielding huge dividends for Richard Ayoade and his seductively surreal treatise on self-identity succinctly called “The Double.” It’s a real mind-blower, too. But then that’s what you’d expect from a filmmaker inspired by the novelty of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel of the same name. What you don’t anticipate is such a funny, fully realized portrait of existential madness that also finds time to pay reverent homage to Ayoade’s biggest influences, Terry Gilliam and David Lynch.

You see it in the dystopian, steampunk sets evoking the drudgery and repression straight out of Gilliam’s forgotten masterpiece, “Brazil.” And you sense it in the vivid display of hallucinatory grotesqueness that instantly recalls Lynch’s headscratchers, “Eraserhead” and “Mulholland Drive.” Yet, Ayoade (“Submarine”) still makes “The Double” his own, with a style and flair so mesmerizing it’s hard to believe it’s only his second turn as a writer-director.

Shot almost entirely in dark sepia tones and set in a nightmarish cubicle farm, “The Double” fills the soul with loneliness and dread, as it depicts a young man who has become all but invisible to everyone around him. You laugh at the dark humor derived from the constant stream of indignities Eisenberg’s Simon James endures from his bosses and drone-like co-workers. But you also empathize with the isolation engulfing Simon as he’s repeatedly made to feel utterly unnoticed and alone.

It’s a part tailor-made for Eisenberg, an actor who never fails to disappear into a role. Or, in this case, two roles. That’s because he also pops up as Simon’s doppelganger, James Simon, a dead ringer in the looks department, but a complete opposite in terms of morals and personality. What a joy it is to watch Eisenberg flesh out both characters to the point where it’s easy to believe Simon and James are two distinct and completely different people. No simple task. But Eisenberg makes it look effortless, which proves invaluable when both are often dressed in the same drab, nondescript clothing.

The twist, straight out of the Hitchcock canon, is that Simon becomes so dominated by his alter ego that he starts to truly believe he no longer exists, especially after James takes over his home, job and Hannah (a radiant Mia Wasikowska), the beautiful girl from the copier department he’s too afraid to approach. Might suicide, the apparent No. 1 cause of death in this despotic society, be his only way out? You never can tell because Ayoade and his co-writer, Avi (brother of Harmony) Korine, always keep you guessing, not to mention laughing, as they mine a rich vein of dark humor throughout. They further the enchantment by bathing their story in romantic longing intensified by the potent chemistry sparked between Wasikowska and Eisenberg. You root hard for both of them, while also being transfixed by Ayoade’s imaginative imagery and eclectic music choices. It’s not for everybody, but if your tastes veer toward the bizarre and unusual, “The Double” is this week’s single best reason to blow your mind.